Jason Russell's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
No Wrongs, Only Write
Analyzing Fantasy: Fantalyzing?
Fantasy literature can be an odd conundrum. We go into it, we cherish it, we crave it for certain trappings and yet when it delivers too thoroughly on many of these, we criticize it for being unoriginal, a rehash, trope-ridden.
Perhaps it is up to fantasy authors, then, to juggle all of the components so that they at least feel fresh to the reader while maintaining the perfect balance of staple ingredients as not to stray too far from the roots.
As an author, I find myself thinking of these concepts often. As a reader I find myself frequently frustrated with the fantasy of the day doing its best to differentiate itself from the tropes. All too often I find myself flowing along in a decent piece of modern fantasy literature but putting on the proverbial brakes because it’s “too modern”, “too snarky”, “too dark”, too whatever. Then, so as to clean the proverbial pallet, I must spend some time with what I consider to be the true classics of the genre until I’m ready to venture into other subcategories once more.
I suppose some of the frustration in all of this stems from the simple fact that it’s really difficult to pinpoint precisely what separates the really great from the rest. Who among us hasn’t picked up a fantasy novel, excited to dig into it, only to discover it feels stale, cliche’, all too familiar?
The trouble, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that we crave the universe that has been pre-built in our folk tales, epics, fairy tales and myths but the trouble is these stories have been told for a long time now!
From a literary standpoint this is true to an extent- though not nearly as popular as Lord of the Rings in hindsight, 1954 was the same year Poal Anderson’s epic The Broken Sword saw publication. The Worm Ouroboros, a heroic high fantasy novel by English writer Eric Rücker Eddison, was first published in 1922. And even The Broken Sword is oft considered a successor to the 1891 novel The Saga of Eric Brighteyes, by H. Rider Haggard. John Ruskin wrote The King of the Golden River back in 1851. And that’s just talking about contemporary fantasy literature. The real roots of the experience can be traced back so much further; to before the written word in fact!
So really, a lot of what makes a piece, even one riddled with familiar trappings, feel fresh is the combination of two things: 1) The Characters and 2) The Prose.
Let’s start with the second. I like to think that post-Tolkien epic fantasy scribes like Robert Jordan, Janny Wurts and Patricia McKillip (to mention a few) realized that flowery, often borderline poetic prose could bring a gravity, a richness to the material. Granted, it’s not for everyone. Some readers want just the facts, ma’am. I personally find their approach in cavalier use of the English language to be strangely satisfying in such a context. Perhaps one of my absolute favorite literary phenomena to experience is the one where the prose is tricky, bogged down and slow-going from the onset but before you know it, somehow the feeling disappears and you’re able to find perfect flow within it. It all just clicks; an instant and sublime gateway into the worlds being created. It’s rare but when it happens, I simply cannot help but admire what the author has accomplished when it does.
On the flip side, authors like George RR Martin and Brandon Sanderson have managed to do something equally rare and wonderful in creating characters (and worlds) that keep the reader riveted. Martin in fact has gone on record stating that it is the struggles of the human condition that make a story engaging, regardless of its setting. In realizing this, it becomes clear that ASOIAF is essentially an exercise in the human psyche’ that just so happens to be wrapped around a fantastical setting. It’s no wonder, then, that it has grown to become one of the most popular contemporary fantasy series of our time. Sanderson creates worlds and magic systems that are characters in and of themselves. It’s very easy to get lost in the fantasy he creates as a result.
In conclusion, I will just keep on zapping this well-worn credit card in constant need for fantasy literary purchases in the school of reasoning, which happens occasionally to be proven wonderfully accurate: Freshness and fantasy do not need to be mutually exclusive terms.
Fantasy literature can be an odd conundrum. We go into it, we cherish it, we crave it for certain trappings and yet when it delivers too thoroughly on many of these, we criticize it for being unoriginal, a rehash, trope-ridden.
Perhaps it is up to fantasy authors, then, to juggle all of the components so that they at least feel fresh to the reader while maintaining the perfect balance of staple ingredients as not to stray too far from the roots.
As an author, I find myself thinking of these concepts often. As a reader I find myself frequently frustrated with the fantasy of the day doing its best to differentiate itself from the tropes. All too often I find myself flowing along in a decent piece of modern fantasy literature but putting on the proverbial brakes because it’s “too modern”, “too snarky”, “too dark”, too whatever. Then, so as to clean the proverbial pallet, I must spend some time with what I consider to be the true classics of the genre until I’m ready to venture into other subcategories once more.
I suppose some of the frustration in all of this stems from the simple fact that it’s really difficult to pinpoint precisely what separates the really great from the rest. Who among us hasn’t picked up a fantasy novel, excited to dig into it, only to discover it feels stale, cliche’, all too familiar?
The trouble, at least as far as I’m concerned, is that we crave the universe that has been pre-built in our folk tales, epics, fairy tales and myths but the trouble is these stories have been told for a long time now!
From a literary standpoint this is true to an extent- though not nearly as popular as Lord of the Rings in hindsight, 1954 was the same year Poal Anderson’s epic The Broken Sword saw publication. The Worm Ouroboros, a heroic high fantasy novel by English writer Eric Rücker Eddison, was first published in 1922. And even The Broken Sword is oft considered a successor to the 1891 novel The Saga of Eric Brighteyes, by H. Rider Haggard. John Ruskin wrote The King of the Golden River back in 1851. And that’s just talking about contemporary fantasy literature. The real roots of the experience can be traced back so much further; to before the written word in fact!
So really, a lot of what makes a piece, even one riddled with familiar trappings, feel fresh is the combination of two things: 1) The Characters and 2) The Prose.
Let’s start with the second. I like to think that post-Tolkien epic fantasy scribes like Robert Jordan, Janny Wurts and Patricia McKillip (to mention a few) realized that flowery, often borderline poetic prose could bring a gravity, a richness to the material. Granted, it’s not for everyone. Some readers want just the facts, ma’am. I personally find their approach in cavalier use of the English language to be strangely satisfying in such a context. Perhaps one of my absolute favorite literary phenomena to experience is the one where the prose is tricky, bogged down and slow-going from the onset but before you know it, somehow the feeling disappears and you’re able to find perfect flow within it. It all just clicks; an instant and sublime gateway into the worlds being created. It’s rare but when it happens, I simply cannot help but admire what the author has accomplished when it does.
On the flip side, authors like George RR Martin and Brandon Sanderson have managed to do something equally rare and wonderful in creating characters (and worlds) that keep the reader riveted. Martin in fact has gone on record stating that it is the struggles of the human condition that make a story engaging, regardless of its setting. In realizing this, it becomes clear that ASOIAF is essentially an exercise in the human psyche’ that just so happens to be wrapped around a fantastical setting. It’s no wonder, then, that it has grown to become one of the most popular contemporary fantasy series of our time. Sanderson creates worlds and magic systems that are characters in and of themselves. It’s very easy to get lost in the fantasy he creates as a result.
In conclusion, I will just keep on zapping this well-worn credit card in constant need for fantasy literary purchases in the school of reasoning, which happens occasionally to be proven wonderfully accurate: Freshness and fantasy do not need to be mutually exclusive terms.
